It is hard to explain what great fashion photography means to me, I will try my best to describe it; firstly it feels like a successful mixture of contradictions, not spontaneous but free and authentic, sometimes you can really feel the energy in the photograph, despite it being a still. As for colours they can be either clashing, clean black or white or a select palette that somehow work and sing together through the balance and contrast. The composition cleverly has a rhythm or a frequency that entices the eye and engages you to follow the image, take it in and process it. I believe you can apply this theory to art in general - I consider fashion photography to be an art, whilst others may not, or simply overlook it, like fashion, as something frivolous. I am constantly surprised and inspired by how fashion photography is changing and developing. It is one of the reasons I still buy lots of fashion magazines. With fashion photography sometimes an image looks timeless, for example some of David Bailey's work, other times it is hard to gauge the date of a photo. Here is a combination of fashion photographers who I love:
Steven Meisel 2012. A popular photographer in US and Italian Vogue. To put it simply, Meisel is great with colour and composition, he visualises trends in a unique and striking way to translate them for his audience. Meisel has shot many advertising campaigns Lanvin, Versace, Balenciaga, Calvin Klein, Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Jacobs, Louis Vuitton... to name but a few. His work can be provocative and controversial, for instance he created a shoot for Italian Vogue called 'Super mods entering rehab', comprising of 26 images of models in an old fashioned rehabilitation facility. Some critics considered this to be distasteful, glamourising and dismissing of seriousness of addiction and illness.
Irvine Penn 'Bee' 1995. Penn is also known for his still life, portrait photography in addition to being a fashion photographer. Penn started his career at Harpers Bazaar in the USA, as an Office Assistant and later becoming a Vogue photographer in the late 1930's. Some of his photos have a dark, haunting edge, yet there is a remarkable and directness from them. The image above of the bee crawling across an opened mouth makes you feel slightly uncomfortable, nevertheless I think this photo is good, it pushes the boundaries and intrigues the viewer.
Theirry Van Biesen - I was lucky enough to meet Van Biesen 10 years ago, and I wish I had asked him more about his work, I saw his studio in the basement of his Milan House and at the time thought he was ahead of his time. There is flawless photoshop work, gentle quirks with a sense of humour in his photography.
Juergen Teller. Teller is quirky, and to me very modern. He isn't aiming for generic beauty or a flattering pose for the model. His images have a minimalistic quality, at times his compositions are awkward the model could be crawling out of a large paper bag (Victoria Beckham, Marc Jacobs advert). There is a rawness and honesty to his photos, that is rare in a world of digitally manipulated busy images.
David Bailey is amazing. Still, a 50 year spanning career, from Photographing the Cray twins to Queen Elizabeth with many models and famous faces between. In the Vogue 100 A Century of Style exhibition he was a prominent figure. His photos are often black and white, depicting honesty in portrait style shots, sometimes showing a playful and less serious side of his subjects.
Tim Walker. I know another Vogue favourite. And a photographer that every girl on my Foundation and Degree class were obsessed with. Yet significant success and distinct popularity should not make him any less relevant. I feel there is this negative and almost British sarcastic attitude that if an artist or a trend isn't exclusive or some kind of secret they are no longer interesting, and someone else new and shiny needs to come along (who is more of a new exciting under exposed secret). So Walker's photos are simply beautiful, they are eccentric, sometimes inspired by fairy tales, occasionally dark. Often using ethereal beauty and clever compositions (apparently no photoshop or digital manipulation). He is a regular Vogue photographer. I have visited one of his exhibitions and I own two of his glorious books.
Mario Testino Carmen Kass 2012 - Testino was born in 1954, and has notably worked with Vogue, Vanity fair and W magazine. He has also worked with major fashion and beauty brands to produce advertising campaigns. Testino catches his subject and brings it to life in a bright, bold and direct way. Testino has photographed a wide portfolio of people, like Bailey he is noted for photographing the Royal family - particually Princess Diana. Colours in Testino's photos are strong and unapologetic, there is a clear. Compared to Teller's minimalist work, Testino is a total maximalist .
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